The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind-And Almost Found Myself-On the Pacific Crest Trail by Dan White

Author:Dan White [White, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel
ISBN: 9780061376931
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-05-13T17:49:50+00:00

* Francis P. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

* Years later, Muir expressed gratitude that this “horrid guillotine of a thing” didn’t work very well.

Chapter 19

Why I Walk

I walk because I want to be cool. I walk because I want to be a rebel.

All my life, I’ve shied away from doing cool things. I’m talking about swearing in public, taking drugs, slutting, and engaging in displays of primal rage. It’s not that there was any law against doing any of these things, except the drugs. It’s just that I was a nerd.

Growing up in a seaside town in Southern California, I had a large group of friends, all nerds. Studious and polite, they defined the boundaries of my world. In high school, we never got into any trouble. I thought we were being cheeky when we drove out to Spires, a chain restaurant in Torrance that stays open until midnight. Some nights, when our blood was up, we would stay out as late as ten thirty at night and eat a platter of popcorn shrimp. If we really felt like pressing the boundaries of societal norms, we ordered the Monte Cristo, which is basically a French toast sandwich, with ham, cheese, and powdered sugar on the top. Sometimes, we would stay out as late as eleven, sipping fountain drinks and ordering milkshakes, without even telling our parents, because, gosh darn it, they didn’t need to know. At the time, I thought this was as rebellious as a teen could be. Consequently I was shocked—shocked!—many years later when I found out that all the other boys at my high school were smoking pot, snorting coke, and getting blowjobs on catamarans. How come they’d never invited me to even one of these parties? Where did they get the drugs? How did they keep the catamarans from tipping over? I tried to visualize these parties, but they were unimaginable. To me, a party was an occasion in which people gathered to play Pictionary or Yahtzee and perhaps consume some Hawaiian Punch. So how did these wild parties work? What did they look like? Did they start off with Pictionary and Hawaiian Punch and somehow transition, gradually, into the sex and drinking? Or was there no transition? Did some appointed person stand up at the party, in an awkward moment, and announce what was going to happen? “Hey everybody! It’s eleven P.M. Put down that Yahtzee set. It’s time for the drugs and the soulless fucking to begin!”

Don’t get me wrong. I smoked pot a few times but felt nothing but forgetful, craving Beer Nuts, and convinced that everyone on earth was out to beat the shit out of me. In other words, it had no affect on me whatsoever. Once, at an outdoor music festival with my sister, Edie, I decided to join the counterculture once and for all. Unbeknownst to my protective sister, I bought a hash-infused granola bar from a freak in a dashiki. The

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